San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1887-09-27
CHAPTER l.
IN RoUsDoN BAY.

Tou have broad valleys, in which are
peaceful hamlets and yellow corn fields;
You have open spaces on windy hill tops,
where tall thistles are crowned with
winged balls of feathered spray, ready to
be blown to the four corners Of the earth by
the carrier winds; you have chalk downs,
with bare turf, and here and there u bright
trout stream, where you may see the
quick eyed water rat, or even catch
glimpse of an otter; you have straight and
sturdy cliffs, looking out upon the waste
Of waters; you have here and there little
port with its little town; and you have, as
the towering glory and splendor of the
whole, the undercliff, with its brackcn
fields and grassy knobs heaped one above
the other, backed by the crags and faced
by the sea, telling of fallen rocks and I'M
dermining waves.
My name, when was child and ran
wild among these wonders, learning every
day to feel their beauty more, was Pleas
ance Noel. There are plenty Of Noels in
D. "setshire, but none of my kin in Lyme
Nor do | know how l came to be born
there, nor anything about my mother, who
died when l was born; nor much about
my father, who was ship carpenter by
rank and calling. / was born, believe,
In the year one Thousand seven hundred
and eighty-seven. never had birthday,
because no one cared to remember such an
insignificant circumstance as the birth of
0 sailors child. My father went down in
eighty mine on boasd the Invincible, which
foundered in heav gale off Jamaica, with
all hands except Swo or three. These
managed to get to land, or to be picked
up, forget which, and told the disastrous
story.
Dan CULVER came to my help, being al
ways the most kind hearted of men, and,
besides, friend of my fathers. He lived
at Rousdon, which is three miles and a
half from Lyme, being then a widOwer
with two boys living, two or three years
older than myself.
There are a good many Gullivers in Dor
setshire, as well as Noels. When / first
read "Gulliver's Travels" it was the more
renl to me, because / was sure that the
honest captain must have come from my
part Of the country, and l was equally
sure that in appearance he greatly resem-
bled Dan.
Nobody, except his sons, ever called him
anything else but Dan. Not Mr.. Guilt
yer, or Daniel CULVER but plain Dan.
AS early as | can remember him he had
gray hair. He was man Of middle
height and strong build, with immense
hands; he had a face covered all over
with crows foot wrinkles, and it had
the kindliest and gentlest expression
that can dwell upon human countenance;
his light blue eyes rested upon one when
he spoke, as if he loved to look upon his
friend; he was as incapable of thinking or
speaking evil as of doing it. Therefore he
was everybody's friend. l suppose he
In litf1a nf owl living "a hp did
upon his seaboard farm, as remote from
the world and as little suspicious Of dan
ger as did those poor men of Laish, who
"dwelt after the manner of the Zidonians,
quiet and secure"
His estate consisted of patrimonial
ten acre slip, lying chiefly along the cliff.
1t was poor piece Of land, which grew
scanty crops, hardly worth the trouble Of
cultivation; but it gave occupation to the
two boys, job and Jephthah, and to the
one farm labOrer whom we employed,
Isaac Agus; Dan himself looked after the
boats, of course. If the land was poor,
the farm house and yards showed every
sign of prosperity. There were pigs
which grunted in the sites or roamed
about the yards, grubbing among roots
with philanthrOpic resolve to waste no
time in becoming good pork; fowls which
laid eggs and chuckled over them; ducks
which drove broods of little soft yellow
balls, which might have been cocOons had
they not been live things, into the pond;
geese, on the waste of land, which cackled
TO each other encouragement to get fat
come Michaelmas; and there were the
most generous of cows in the matter of
milk. The dairy where Mrs. Agus and
] made butter was always full of cream
and milk; there were hay ricks, plOws,
fails, carts, harrows and all the signs of
successful cultivation.
The twin boys, Job and Jephthah, were,
like their father, of middle height, with
broad shoulders and big hands; they were
as exactly like each other as pair Of
Cinnamon; but when you came to live In
the house, you learned gradually to dis
tinguish certain little differences not appa-
rent to strangers. Outside the farm no one
knew Jephthah from Job, and addressed
either at random as Job or Jephthah. They
had blue eyes, like their father, light
brown hair and gentle way, which they
inherited. But they exaggerated the pa
ternal characteristics. His gentleness be-
came, with them, slowness; his tact
turnity became absolute dumbness.
The most frequent visitor was Joshua
~
at Up Lyme. When l was sixteen he
must have been about six and twenty
some seven years older than the boys.
He, too, was strongly built and well pro-
portioned, but he had the other Dorset
shire face-nOt that of the Gullivers.
Everybody knows that there are two faces
in Dorsetshire-thatw with blue eyes and
brown hair round face, and that with
dark hair and dark eyes, an oval face;
sometimes very beautiful, but sometimes
forbidding and harsh. Joshua's face had
the latter character. His eyes were too
close together; his expression was threat
ening; his chin too long and square; his
manner was imperative. He was mas
terful man, man who always got what
he wanted; if he desired thing, he said
he should have it, and he got it. The his
tory that follows, however, is that of
thing which he desired vehemently and
did not get. Another visitor, and the
only other friend of the family, was the
rector of Rousdon, the Rev. Benjamin
Burden.
Rousdon parish contained population
of eleven souls, six of whom came from
Rousdon Farm. Its yearly value was
e35. There was also house with bit
of glebe land. The house was a cottage;
the glebe land was garden cultivated by
the rector himself. He had an orchard,
the apples of which he sold for cider,
fruit and vegetable garden, two or three
pigs, some fowls, and sometimes, the gift
of his church warden, some ducks. He
was a bachelor and lived entirely alone in
his cottage His church was barn with
O matched roof, kept from falling down